LaTitta

His first target is named Steve Harrington and the guy who hired him made him out to be the devil incarnate. Some back stabbing, cheating son of a bitch who's into some shady shit. Eddie would have backed out, but the guy was willing to pay a lot of money and the van wasn't goig to fix itself...and maybe he was eyeing that original pressing of Kill Them All at the record store down the street, sue him.

Unfortunately for him, this Steve guy seems painfully normal. He watches him from a disatance, camera full of nothing but pictures of Steve going to his job at the Y. Going to the library to pick up his friend. Sitting alone on a bench with an ice cream. Dropping the ice cream on his shoes and looking so defeated. Petting a cat under the chin.

The guy is actually kind of pathetic, if Eddie was being honest. He has like two friends and never stays out past nine PM.

He's also really fucking hot.

He keeps bringing the same kind of stuff to his client, all but begging him to please let Eddie drop the case, but he just keeps throwing money at him and Eddie is a sucker for cold, hard cash. It's just getting kind of awkward because, well, he may or may not be falling ass over tits for this very sad, very beautiful man he's been stalking.

He has perfected his aloof, give-no-shit facade over the years but nothing will get it to crack faster than shoes on the table, mud in his car, or laundry thrown on the bathroom floor.

It's his biggest hurdle in getting together with Eddie. He likes him so much and doesn't give a shit that he's a guy, but then Eddie will let ketchup dry at the corner of his mouth and Steve wants to gag.

The first time he sees his room he instinctively starts picking things up and putting them away, which Eddie will later find kind of cute and endearing, but in the moment, feels rude and invasive and judgmental.

He's thirteen at the time and it's such a change for him. Suddenly Steve has someone in his life that cares deeply about him, that loves spending time with him and never makes him feel like a burden.

It's so different from how his life has been with his parents, it's so much better.

As the years go by, Steve spends a lot of time with his grandma. His friends mock him because of this and, needless to say, they don't stay friends for too long after that.

But it's fine, Steve doesn't need Tommy or Carol or Billy, he finds better friends in Robin and Nancy and, shockingly, in the group of kids he starts babysitting in his free time, especially Dustin and Erica.

His father doesn't approve this. The Hagans and Perkins have been their friends for years, and their families have benefited from this alliance of theirs in a lot of ways; ending that because of some silly teasing is stupidity.

Norma Harrington thinks otherwise, and hers is the only opinion Steve cares about, so he doesn't go back on his word. His friendship with Tommy and Carol is done, and he moves on easily from that.

When Steve graduates, his grandma is right there with him when he informs his dad that he won't be getting a business degree, and that he's going to get his certifications to become a teacher instead. It's not easy, his dad is furious and his mom is confused, but his grandma is there to support him so Steve stands his ground.

His father doesn't show up when Steve leaves for college. That's his loss, really.

At twenty-two, Steve moves back to Hawkins. He rents an apartment downtown, close to Melvald's and starts teaching PE and Sex Ed, as well as coaching the baseball team and it's everything Steve ever wanted in his life.

His grandma comes over at least twice a week, and Steve visits her every weekend. They have brunch together, she teaches him to knit and crochet and they watch telenovelas and drink tea and bake.

Norma is seventy-one when she has a bad fall and breaks her leg.

Steve freaks out. Her surgery goes well but it still takes her months to recover. And even after she does, it still takes her months of PT to get back on her feet.

Steve takes her to every single one of her PT sessions.

Ever the optimist, Norma faces each session with a smile on her face and fierce determination. She befriends the therapists, the patients, the nurses.

Every time Steve is there to pick her up, she's always chatting and laughing with someone. Most of the times, it's a serious looking man, around fifty or so, named Wayne that's been visiting the clinic to take care of a shoulder injury he got at work. Despite the hard exterior, Wayne is always kind to Norma, and he always greets Steve with a small smile and a firm handshake.

"I was talking to Wayne yesterday," his grandma says, during one of their brunches. "And he said his nephew just moved here. He's opening the record store close to Family Video."

"The one with the metal posters and the giant bat on the wall?"

"Yes, that one. Wayne said Eddie's always been fascinated by anything music related, and he's been saving up for years to open his own store."

"But why Hawkins? We're not exactly a large town or anything."

"Wayne is the only family he has. I guess he just wants to be close."

Steve is not even surprised when, a week later, his grandma tells him she invited Wayne and Eddie over to have dinner with them.

"Eddie still doesn't have many friends here, and he's about your age, darling," she explains as she sets four plates on Steve's dinner table. "Who knows, maybe you'll like him."

And like him Steve does.

Eddie is... interesting.

A little loud, a lot dramatic but in a funny way. He has the best stories about the time he was a bartender in Chicago, and some creepy ones about the time he worked as a janitor in a morgue in Indy.

Add to that the fact that Eddie is also pretty fucking hot, and it's not surprising at all when Steve finds himself nursing an embarrassing crush in less than a month into their friendship.

It will take Steve at least a couple more months for him to grow enough courage to open his heart to Eddie. When he finally does, Eddie is going to kiss him dumb before Steve can even finish the little speech he had rehearsed over and over again with his grandma for a week.

My partner in crime ditched me. But, well, as far as excuses go, he had a pretty good one.

No, it's because when Steve and Robin take over the SQWK, half the sound effect tapes are busted from the "earthquakes," and Steve says to himself, I know a freak who can probably do silly little voices and is conveniently all but strapped to a hospital bed and can not escape me.

So Steve spends an absurd amount of time bugging Eddie in his hospital room, shoving a microphone in his face, telling him to "scream like a woman falling down the stairs" or "cough like you just choked on a hit," while he's trying to make sure his insides don't become outsides.

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